Catching Fire:The Night Before
by Engel-Deamoness-C.D
Summary: A glimpse at the night before Peeta and Katniss head for the capital. Short ramble that does not follow the book 100% Enjoy :)


**So in all honesty I feel like dork. This series has been out since god knows how long and it took me about a year after the movie came out to read the whole series on my day off. May I say it was amazing and now I am hooked! It was my first non-college related book, and now I am spending my day off being a bit naughty not studying, relaxing, and writing what comes off the top of my head. **

Peeta knew he needed to sleep. It was the wee hours of the morning, and he hadn't slept much since they had made the announcement of the 75th hunger games. Just the thought of going back into the arena made him shudder. The fear he felt, the pain, the worry, of what was to come what had happened what could happen. It swarmed his senses making sleep now impossible. Sweat coated his skin reminding him of blood. It fell on your skin warm, sticky even; then as it cooled the sick feeling in your stomach; the almost need to vomit to try to purge the feeling of it drying. The feeling of the life that has been extinguished as the life blood cools on your coated skin leaving it crusty and cold. No one mentions this before the games. It is only after you have escaped, had time to relive the horrors instead of react that you realize the true agony that is the games. The lives you take are no longer survival it was a way for the capital to control the districts by having them their children murder each other, stripping them of their innocents, making them a varied form of gladiators. They had victors and the victims. The victors lived lives of luxury, while the victims endured a gory death. The victors were supposed to be free from the games, free to live their lives in comfort, but they were not free men. They were gladiator slaves who still had to jump at the call of the capital. No free will. Yes they were rich but they had to jump when the capital said jump.

That was not the life he wanted. He wanted to marry, and have children, but he did not want to be forced. He wanted his future wife to love him. To want him. To want to be with him. He wanted Katniss to love him for real. Not the fake smiles and kisses she gave him in front of cameras as she imagined him to be Gale. He still loved her, wanted her, but he was tired of the pretend. He didn't want to push her. He just wanted to know; had anything changed? Or was everything a game. He laughed to himself. It probably was. Once you enter the Games you never really get out of them. For as long as you live you will always be a pawn in the games. The only good thing about this arrangement would be his ability to save Katniss. He would protect her with his life if need be just as before. Nothing would change even if she didn't love him.

Her reaction earlier was only proof that she needed it. She was just a broken as him. They were forever haunted by ghosts. He could block them out most of the time but Katniss was in a way more fragile, she had told him what Gale had said before she went to the games the first time. The killing of animals was no different form killing human beings. Isn't that what separated us from the animals? The inability to kill our own? Maybe he was born backwards but death of anything for entertainment was wasteful and wrong. He shook his head, "I was born in the wrong world." His sad lonely voice echoed in the empty home in the victor's village. He was alone, and lonely. The two coincided like a hot barb in his heart. His family didn't want him, and neither did Katniss. With a brief sigh he rolled out of his bed and went into his kitchen, if he could not sleep he may as well do something useful. He swept around his kitchen pulling out various flours, salts, baking powders, and yeast. Peeta would make Katniss her favorite bread. As he measured mixed and kneaded the bread. This was what helped keep the monsters at bay, painting, baking and Katniss. Those things could make his life whole. Before he could start the oven, a terror filled scream erupted into the night. Without a second thought he knew who it was and ran next door.

He hurriedly knocked on the door, but after a few minutes no one came to the door. It was strange it was usually Mrs. Everdean who had the door already open waiting for him. The house was dark, and he could hear the muffled sobs. Was she alone? Without even considering the right and wrongs of it he ran to the back door, kicked it in and bolted up the stairs taking two at a time. His only thought was Katniss. He nearly ripped her bedroom door of its hinges as he entered her room scooping her in his arms whispering she was home, safe and he was there. It took several minutes for her to calm down; her body was shaking with her jerky breaths as she tried to calm herself.

"I know…but I can't" she sobbed hiccupping between words as the clutched him closer to her, eliminating any space between the two. Peeta ran his hands though her loose hair kissing the top of her head as he started to rock her.

"Let it out, you don't have to fight it." He kissed her hair, "just let it out. I'm here for you."

She almost sobbed harder, her body spasming as she tried to get herself under control. It took a while but the whole time she was wrapped in Peetas arms. Safe, a word so laughable seemed like truth when it came from Peeta. Her body and mind was tired, but there was so much she wanted to say that she felt she couldn't. Her mind was rattling with what if's and the terror that would be brought within two months.

"Are you okay," Peeta whispered above her head. Katniss violently shook her head as she sobbed harder.

"I can't do it again; I can already feel it running down my hands.

"Shh.. It's okay. I'm here for you."

"Who will be there for our child?" her hand protectively covered her stomach. Her shoulders shook with sobs. "I never wanted children, now I don't have a choice, how can we keep, him or her safe?" She hunched over as sobs wracked her body. Peeta covered her protectively in a blanket and settled her in his arms, her back facing him.

"One of us will make it out Katniss." He turned her face towards his to see her expression. Her eyes were puffy, but there was an undertone of determination glimmering in their depths.

"We, Peeta, we are going to make it or escape or die trying. I am not going to be without you. I don't think I could make it." Her eyes began to tear up, bottom lip trembling; she moved her lips closer to his. And he moved to her kissing her like it was a good bye. It was as if that would be their last moments they could spend together. Tomorrow they would be going back to the capital, back to the bowels of hell. There they would be gladiators in a game they never wanted. It would never end. More lambs would be sacrificed to satisfy the lions, and the crowds of the capitol.

In his mind he wanted her to be kissing him because she loved him, but it was more so she could forget. She didn't want to remember those she had killed. Peeta knew it, and Katniss knew it as well. He knew how to comfort her make her forget, a loveless relationship, cuddling, stolen kisses, and sex. Was it fair? No, but it was all he had. No one else would fight for him like she had, and he would do the same. He would protect her as best he could. If it required his life he would gladly accept it. He would protect the woman he loved and their unborn child.


End file.
